The Fleeting Years Read online

  ‘I don’t want our night to be spoilt with worries about the children. Tonight belongs to us, just us.’ She tried to explain why she wanted to move on from the children before the start of their own time.

  He sat down by her side on the settee and took her hand in his. ‘You’re a nice lady, Mrs Marchand, I expect that’s why I married you.’

  ‘Rubbish! You married me because I decided I wanted you for my husband and once I had you in my sights you hadn’t a chance,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But, about tonight, nothing must spoil what we’ve waited so long for. Me in working order again and you home, no one in our world except us. Nothing must spoil it; not worrying about Tom being hurt or about you grumbling at Fiona. They have to sort themselves out, darling, that’s a lesson life teaches everyone.’ She rested against him and felt his arm go round her.

  ‘You make it sound easy,’ he whispered, turning her head so that she was looking at him, her face only inches from his. ‘Perhaps women are harder than men, like you say. Zee, if I ever lost you I’d have no courage, no hope, no will to live.’

  ‘And no choice either. One day either you or I will have to face it, darling Peter. Please God not for many, many years, not till we have a brood of great-grandchildren.’ Her mood seemed to change, he could sense it in the way she drew her head away from his. Then she leant forward so that she moved her parted lips on his as she murmured, ‘Please sir, I’ve changed my mind. I want you to take me to bed, I want us to make glorious love, we have nine months of frustrated loneliness to make up for.’

  ‘If it were winter with a fire in the hearth, I wouldn’t wait to take you upstairs …’ He sounded as though he spoke with clenched teeth. ‘I’d like to tear off your clothes this very minute and have you on the rug. Come, woman. Bedtime.’

  Still she moved her mouth on his. ‘We can make our own warmth.’ She was unbuttoning his shirt, then she was kneeling in front of him moving her face against his bare chest. Outside, dusk was deepening as she reached to turn off the table lamp, her excitement mounting. Both of them were stripping off their clothes; only free of them would they find complete abandonment to the need that drove them.

  The Viennese waltz was replaced by a tango. Which one led the way they didn’t question but in seconds she was in his arms, her naked body close against his as he took her weight and they rocked gently in time to the music. This wasn’t so much dancing as it was a preamble to where they were heading; and with the certainty of what was within their grasp, their passion mounted with the rhythm. He heard that familiar soft half moan in her throat telling him more than any words, a sound that had haunted him in the isolation of his hotel bedroom, and from his quickened breathing and his nakedness pressing hard against her, she knew their moment had come.

  ‘Now, now Peter.’ She drew back from him far enough to move his hand to her breast as together they sank to the ground on the soft furry rug. The night was their own, the music changed again, this time to a rumba, but to them it was no more than a background to what filled their hearts and minds. Peter was home.

  Films had brought him fame beyond the expectations of his early years, and since he’d left the repertory company soon after they’d married he had never been back on the stage. But, apart from his realization that a future in Hollywood wasn’t for him and certainly it wasn’t for Zina, one of the things that had decided him against signing that five-year contract was a meeting with Carl Weinberg, an Austrian by birth who was visiting friends in Hollywood. England was his adopted country and, as a most successful producer on the scene of London theatre, his name was familiar to Peter. Immediately they’d met they had felt themselves to be on the same wavelength and talking to him had reawakened Peter’s original stage ambitions. More than that, when Carl returned to London he would be casting for a production of Shakespeare’s King Lear and he’d talked to Peter about Lear being a challenging role, finally offering it to him, pointing out that it would be a good career move. The last time Peter had acted in a Shakespeare play had been when he’d been in the sixth form at school and had played the lead role in Richard the Second. The opportunity to play King Lear had triggered something that had lain dormant over the years and it had seemed providential that the proposition had been made when his career needed the excitement and challenge a return to the stage would bring.

  That first night at home, when they were gloriously satisfied and content and finally lay down in bed, he talked to Zina of what he had in mind.

  ‘It’ll be a most important career move,’ he said. ‘It has to be a success, or it’ll leave a stain that will be hard to get over. But Zee, it’s what I need. Think of it, Lear tugs your heart strings, one of Shakespeare’s greatest characters.’

  ‘You know what, my precious Peter? You’re maturing really well. You’re moving into serious theatre, the sort that isn’t touched by the faint-hearted. You’ll get right under the skin of Lear, I know you will.’

  In the dark she felt him nod. ‘I must. I want to. It sounds silly perhaps, but reading the play I’ve wept for him and with him. Can I do it? I’ve never wanted a part as much as I do this one. You think I can make it, Zee?’

  ‘I know you can. It’s funny about Shakespeare, isn’t it? We all study his works when we’re at school and far too young to appreciate what we read. Is that so that we get the feeling of the beauty of the words, do you suppose? Honestly, at fourteen I believed I was put off for life.’

  ‘I’ll make Lear live and breathe for you. I must.’

  She had never known him to talk like it about any role in the past. In fact, he seldom mentioned the characters he played. But this was different. This would mean he had hours of work ahead of him learning lines, lines that must be word perfect. And as if his thoughts had followed her own, he said, ‘I’ve been given a glorious responsibility, to bring flesh and blood to a character that is part of drama that has been our heritage for centuries. And I will, I swear I will. It’s years since I’ve learnt lines, and never ones that mattered so much that not a syllable must be wrong.’ Then with a laugh that left her in no doubt how thrilled he was to have been handed this life-changing role, he added, ‘It’s like the day I was made head boy at school, a combination of being lifted right out of myself, being a bit frightened by the responsibility and yet proud, so proud.’

  ‘I’m proud too. And Carl what’s-his-name must be a very wise man to have recognized you’re not like so many of them – all front and no back, to use one of Mrs Cripps’s favourite expressions. You’ll be a great success. Promise you won’t let it change you, I love you just as you are.’

  ‘Change me? If anything it might make me humble.’

  ‘After tonight’s performance humility would be out of character.’ Lying in the dark she wriggled closer to him, moving her hand down his naked body, secretly exploring to see if his recovery had been as quick as her own. Finding her goal, her hand moved on him. She believed King Lear must be on her side; thoughts of him had driven sleep away. ‘The night’s ours, I’m wide awake and if you tell me you’re ready for sleep you’ll be fibbing.’ She spoke softly, tenderly but he detected laughter just under the surface. Downstairs they had been driven by a physical need that couldn’t be denied. Now was very different.

  ‘The woman’s a temptress,’ he teased softly. ‘Is there no satisfying her?’

  ‘Try her and find out,’ she answered. With her mouth on his she moved her tongue lightly, almost teasingly on his lips. Downstairs their love-making had been driven by love and by a physical need that could be satisfied no other way; laughter had played no part. But this was different. She reached to put the bedside light on and they looked at each other, not with sultry, driving passion, but with laughter in their eyes, laughter that was as much an expression of their love as their earlier sensual desire had been. And so he brought her again to the mountain that together they climbed, not Everest this time, but sunny slopes where wild flowers grew, and after they reached the summit they looked at each othe
r as they had before the climb started and laughed, not because there was anything funny, but from pure joy.

  Through the time Peter had been away, Jenny had often driven over to Newton House, sometimes on her own but, as Zina recovered, more often with Derek. In the past it had never been her habit to drop in casually when Peter was home, something that had annoyed Zina as she’d seen it as a slight on him. Then Derek Masters had come into the picture and things had changed. The two men were very comfortable together, perhaps drawn by the fact that neither had ever followed a profession where he left home in the morning and returned in the evening. A musician and an actor, both had known good and bad lodgings in their early years, which had been one of the reasons why, when Derek had formed the Meinholt Quintet, he had arranged their recitals in the West Country and, as far as possible, looked for members of the quintet from that region. That way, their nights away from home were limited.

  It was an evening late in the summer when Jenny and Derek were having dinner at Newton House. Although it wasn’t yet officially autumn, the temperature had dropped and there was a log fire burning in the open grate of the drawing room where the four of them went after the meal.

  ‘What about some music?’ Jenny suggested, ashamed of her smug feeling of pleasure that ‘their sort of music’ would shut Peter out. ‘Are you up to playing, Zina, if Derek accompanies you?’ There, Peter my lad, we’re not all philistines where music is concerned. You see, Zina will never be completely yours; she’s one of us.

  But he played the perfect host – or perhaps it was the perfect actor – as he went up to the music room and turned on the electric fire.

  ‘Is Zina getting the coffee?’ he asked when he came back. ‘We’ll have that before we go upstairs. I’ve put the fire on but it’ll be a while before it gets as warm as it is in this room. If you find it cold, Mother-in-law, Zina can lend you a wrap.’ He gave no hint that he realized she had suggested music expecting it would make him feel outside their magic orbit.

  A quarter of an hour later Zina picked up her fiddle, running her hand over the smooth beauty of the wood in something of a caress. For so long she had been unable to play and, even when all the plaster had been removed, she had yet to hold her fiddle for more than two or three minutes at a time, as if drawing the bow over the strings was a necessary part of life. But tonight she would test herself; she would make music. No wonder her heart thumped, whether from apprehension or excitement. Turning the pegs to tighten the strings as she tuned up and Derek took his place at the piano, she felt whole again, the misery of the past months was surely behind her. Although she’d been free of plaster for some weeks the physiotherapist had been treating her regularly and had told her not to do anything to strain her arms or shoulders. She remembered the warning as she tucked her fiddle under her chin, but surely strain meant heavy lifting or carrying; her violin had been part of her life for so long that it could never come into that category. And yet, until that evening, a silent voice had warned her not to play.

  Derek had looked through the music and passed her the violin score of a Brahms Sonata. For nearly half an hour they played while Jenny listened, feeling thoroughly satisfied with where life had brought them all, and Peter kept an anxious eye on Zina. Jenny was enjoying the music but, perhaps even more, she was enjoying seeing an expression she construed as impatience on Peter’s face. How could Zina have married a man with no appreciation of something so much part of her life?

  As the last notes died away she said, ‘That was a joy! What else will you play?’ delighting in believing she could read Peter’s thoughts.

  ‘I think you should stop, Zina. You haven’t touched that fiddle for months until now.’

  ‘It’s probably good exercise for me,’ she answered, at which Jenny nodded, feeling the point was hers. Zina remembered the warnings against straining the muscles, but playing a fiddle was hardly heavy work. So she tried to ignore the pain and prove what she said to be correct: exercise must be doing her good. All she knew for certain was that making music was like a drug to her and she had been deprived of it for far too long. ‘The Caesar Franck is in that pile, Derek, I’d love to play that again.’

  So they started again and Jenny relaxed in her chair with a smile of satisfaction while Peter gave the impression of sitting on the edge of his chair waiting for it to be over. He wasn’t aware of what they played (not that he was really listening anyway), all his concentration was on Zina. He knew how desperately she wanted to rejoin the quintet, he even gave a passing moment’s sympathy to her temporary replacement who would soon find herself looking for a new slot to fit into, but at the front of his mind was concern for Zina. When she had joined ‘that merry band of travelling musicians’ he had been full of resentment that they could mean so much to her. But now his one hope was that she would be deemed fit to follow where her heart led, for he had come to understand that it was only in his own mind that her love for music could ever come between them. When he had seen the physiotherapist out after a recent visit, he had spoken to her about Zina’s prospects. The outcome of the conversation had been a visit from the doctor who, when asked, had been very evasive. ‘Once you commit yourself there can be no lessening of the pressure, no turning back,’ he had hedged, and, ‘Rest is what it needs, my dear. Not only were bones broken, but muscles were torn. The last thing you want is to force yourself to do more than nature wants. A recital is a very different thing from playing at home where you can stop when you feel you’ve had enough.’ So it was little wonder that Peter watched her so carefully. They had been playing for about three quarters of an hour and were halfway through the second movement of the Franck when from where he sat on the edge of his chair he seemed ready to spring into action any second, certain he saw a change in her and yet not sure what. Still she played the notes but he felt she had lost her original abandon into the sound and played mechanically.

  Neither Jenny nor Derek suspected that anything was wrong until her right arm flopped and her bow fell to the ground. Her eyes were closed and although her left hand still held the neck of the instrument, with each second her grip was going. Like a Jack-in-the-Box Peter was out of his chair and across the space that divided them, taking her weight as he supported her. She seemed unaware that Derek, too, had jumped to his feet and taken the violin from her before picking up the bow. Although she was conscious, she was quite limp, leaning helplessly against Peter. Pain filled her whole mind.

  ‘Perhaps she should have sat down to play,’ Jenny suggested, ‘like she will when she starts back with the quintet. I expect it’s been too long for her to stand, poor child.’

  No one answered her and Derek closed the lid of the piano.

  ‘My fault,’ he said, ‘I should have said I’d had enough after the Brahms.’

  ‘Silly,’ Jenny answered him affectionately, ‘as if she would have believed you.’

  Peter wanted them gone; Zina seemed unaware of their presence. With her arms hanging limply to her sides, she leant against Peter and perhaps she didn’t even realize that she was hiding from a truth she couldn’t face; she was aware of nothing except the pain in her neck and shoulders. If she knew that her mother and Derek were leaving she gave no indication of it. She seemed to have no more strength than a rag doll.

  ‘I think we should leave you to get her to bed,’ Derek suggested.

  ‘Oh, but I can get her undressed and into bed,’ Jenny said and perhaps her words did filter into Zina’s mind for Peter felt her press closer against him.

  ‘We can manage,’ he told them. ‘I’m sorry the evening has ended this way, and so will Zina be when she realizes. If you can see yourselves out I’ll take her straight across to the bedroom. I don’t think there’s any need to fetch the doctor out, we know exactly what the trouble is. She’ll be fine by the morning.’

  ‘That seems to treat it very casually.’ The mother hen in Jenny had the upper hand. ‘The poor girl is barely conscious. Look at her, she’s not really with us at all.’
Her eyes met Peter’s and she made no attempt to hide her natural dislike of him, his cavalier way of dismissing Zina’s near collapse reigniting the embers.

  But it was Derek the peacemaker who had the last word.

  ‘She had had her arms raised putting a strain on her shoulder muscles for far too long, muscles she hasn’t used for months. We should have had more consideration than let her do it. As you say, Peter, by morning she’ll be herself again. We’ll give you a ring around breakfast time so that you can set Jenny’s mind at rest – and don’t forget we’re always available if you need us.’

  All this time Zina had kept her face away from them, only Peter knew from the dampness on his neck and her short, almost silent, jerky breaths that she was crying. Still they stood in the same position as the sound of the footsteps on the stairs grew faint and then there was the slam of the front door. Only then did she lose her hold on control and he heard a great gasp for air as she sobbed.

  ‘Is it still so painful?’ he asked her anxiously, having assumed that once she had let her body sag the pain in her muscles would ease.

  She shook her head. ‘It’s not that,’ she answered, having as little control over her voice as she had had over her arms a few minutes before. ‘I can’t do it, Peter. The physiotherapist warned me – when she was massaging me and you were out of the room, she told me that I shall always have to be careful. Do a little at a time, that’s what she said. But that’s no good,’ she gulped, ‘you can’t play a fiddle a little at a time.’

  ‘Do as she says, Zee, and little by little you might find yourself able to increase how long you play. Tonight wasn’t a fair test, you were straight in at the deep end.’

  ‘Was magic,’ she sniffed, ‘the first five minutes. Then it started. I made myself think I could work through it, I didn’t think it would be like that.’